How should we handle Muslim asylum-seekers?

Babette Francis - News Weekly, 12 November 2011

In the debates about boat people, no one has mentioned the elephant in the drawing-room, or rather, the camel poking its nose under the tent. Most recent asylum-seekers are Muslim, and, as our Department of Immigration has warned, uncontrolled immigration could lead to social cohesion problems as in Europe.

Previous refugees from Europe or Indo-China had the capacity to integrate into Australian society
and did; but Muslims have problems because Islam is not only a religion but an all-encompassing
political ideology which allows for no deviation from what is regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.

Instead of integrating into Western societies, Muslims demand halal food, separate prayer rooms, exclusive times at swimming pools for women, and misogynist Sharia law which is degrading to women, designates
non-Muslims as dhimmies or infidels, and prescribes the death penalty
for “apostates” who leave Islam.

Local councils should not provide special women-only swimming-pool times to cater to the misogyny of Islam. Muslim groups who make such requests should be told there is nothing morally wrong with females and males swimming
together.

Having fled tyranny in their homelands,
Muslims should not recreate the tyranny here, but should accept the Australian lifestyle. It is important for Muslim girls to swim in mixed company so they can participate in competitive sport or enjoy the beach.

It is curious that the uber “progressive”
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is so supportive of the uncontrolled
entry into Australia by Muslim asylum-seekers. Her party leader, Senator Bob Brown, would be in prison because of his open profession of homosexuality
were he the citizen of many Muslim countries. Hanson-Young would be shrouded in a burqa were she in Saudi Arabia, and even in other Muslim
countries her activities would be severely
restricted.

So why is she so vocal on Muslim boat people while saying nothing about the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the victims of “blasphemy” laws in Pakistan? Why is the political Left, as epitomised by the Greens, so allied with Islamists? Is this a case of my enemy’s enemy is my friend?

The Left hates George W. Bush/the United States/Western
Christian civilisation — and by extension, Israel — as do Islamists.
Thus we have this unholy
alliance of strange bedfellows, the Greens and the Islamists.

In my view, the federal Opposition should have supported Julia Gillard’s “Malaysia solution” for the boat people. It would have enabled 4,000 long-term refugees to be resettled, and would have sent Muslim boat people to a Muslim country.
If they were not well treated there, they and other moderate Muslims should work to improve human rights in Muslim countries. The 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is vocal at the United Nations, demanding
international blasphemy laws to prohibit criticism of Islam. However, its attention ought to be directed towards
the issue of human rights in Islamic
countries and the plight of Muslim
refugees.

Sarah Hanson-Young has not considered
the dangers of radicalisation of Muslims already living in Western countries — not in the current generation
of refugees who are glad to escape oppression in their homelands, but in their children, who, held back by religious
restrictions, do not achieve their potential and think the answer lies in “jihad”.
When there are so many Christians and others who have waited years in UN refugee camps, why is Australia giving preference to Muslim boat people? Why can’t they be accepted by wealthy Muslim
countries such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates and Qatar?

The Netherlands, with a 6 per cent Muslim population, is abandoning the long-standing model of multiculturalism
that has encouraged Muslim immigrants
to create a parallel society within Holland. Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented a new integration
bill to parliament on June 16.
He announced: “The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government
steps away from the model of a multicultural society….
“A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own citizens. It is necessary because otherwise the society gradually grows apart and eventually no one feels at home anymore in the Netherlands.”

The new integration policy will place demands on immigrants — they will be required to learn the Dutch language, and the government will take a tougher approach to immigrants who ignore Dutch values or disobey Dutch law. The government will also stop offering special
subsidies for Muslim immigrants because, according to Donner, “it is not the government’s job to integrate immigrants”.

The new legislation outlaws forced marriages and will impose tougher measures against Muslim immigrants who lower their chances of employment by the way they dress. The government will impose a ban on face-covering Islamic
burqas as of January 1, 2013.